it's hard to be tender it's hard to stay open when you're dizzy with anger and your dreams have been broken lying with you 'neath the sky the country is so green in the light loving you's the key to my survival now, you have gone away the skies turned grey the rivers froze I remember how you held me close and I shiver it's hard to be tender it's hard to stay open when the woods are on fire and the river is frozen swore on my knees as a child never to forsake God above never to betray the ones who love me now, years have come and gone I find the strength to carry on but the blood that ran so fast and warm has grown colder now, my heart has turned to ice is it just the price of growing older? it's hard to be tender but I'm tired of defending I know that I love you so I'll write my own ending